


ah, but my heart, my bent-over blood

by thronebreaker



Series: thirty prompts challenge [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Touching, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-01
Updated: 2015-02-01
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:36:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3266912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thronebreaker/pseuds/thronebreaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since getting over the initial hesitance from their first kiss, his embraces were decisive; his hands steady when aligned to her, and staying so for hours afterward. He didn’t want to be away from the man he was with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ah, but my heart, my bent-over blood

Cullen preferred himself in action. He was at his best when his mind was occupied - with training, strategies, even with paperwork, despite his grumblings on the matter. Alive with rallying cries, walking with the posture of past superiors, he felt worthy enough to stay behind the title of Commander. And he liked himself even better when the Inquisitor greeted him in those good moments. Their unexpected connection was something he treasured, perhaps more than he deserved to. She reflected back his vulnerability and made it look righteous. He no longer thought himself weak. That made him feel that he could be worthy even as Cullen Rutherford.  
  
The sound of her voice made his pulse quicken and he could feel it coming from his heart instead of from some thickening pit inside his stomach. There were no misdirections of blood to clot in his throat or his eyes or his brain. No jittering bundle of symptoms, but a solid man smiling evenly at the woman he adored. Since getting over the initial hesitance from their first kiss, his embraces were decisive; his hands steady when aligned to her, and staying so for hours afterward. He didn’t want to be away from the man he was with her.

—

Cullen took no greater pride than in the strengths she helped him gather; when she asked to spend the night with him, everything came apart. His hands began to shake at her waist. Immediately, she moved back.

“Will it be alright for you?” she asked. Her hand didn’t stray from the boundary of his shoulder blade, a reminder that he was safe. Anything he gave would be cherished by her. All he wanted to give her was anything, anything at all that would show her _she was everything._  As a permission, he took her hand with his and lifted it to his cheek. She stroked his cheekbone. He could fall into her gaze. Cullen hadn’t let himself want so fiercely in a long time. He turned his face into her touch, inhaled, and nodded.

“Of course.”

The night was full of her pleased sighs, his apologies whenever he fumbles, her immediate reassurances. In the moonlight he let go entirely, laughing between the blankets, always drawing as close to her as possible, even as a strange sadness swelled in his chest. He was beyond enamoured with her, and he whispered as much once she was asleep in his arms.

It was extremely important for him to restrain his fidgeting. If he woke her, he’d be mortified, and she’d be concerned. He couldn’t allow it. He kept it to his feet, lifting his toes up and down while keeping his arm steady around her. She smiled against his arm as she dreamed. What they had felt warm and right. But the night waned on and for all the external comfort, he still couldn’t sleep. He felt flayed. As if it was not his fears that he had let go, it had been his skin unravelling from his body, and he’d been too lost in her to notice. She’d drifted into an easy sleep and left him raw to the night air. Curled around her. Inadequate. He pulled her closer to his chest. Another smile against his arm. He wanted to fold her warmth inside him over and over until he feels himself to be a whole man.

It was fine that he hadn’t gotten any sleep. After morning drills and Josephine’s meeting in the afternoon, he could retire to his quarters. He was used to negotiating with his responsibilities to fit rest. Staying up also meant that he got to see the Inquisitor in her moment of waking, a sight, among a few others, that Cullen’d been quietly curious about for weeks. The dawn had broken through the gaps in his ceiling right onto her face. The light, soft as it was, was enough to wake her. She squinted at him through her eyelashes. With her lips pursed shut, she ran her tongue over her teeth and made a face. He chuckled. Laughing was a welcome feeling after the hours he’d just spent feeling stagnant.

“S’gross.” She muttered. He gave her a look that he hoped mixed sympathy and bemusement into an endearing expression. Before he could see if it had worked, something clicked in her head and she sprang up.

“Ack, I’m so sorry - we have to leave for the coast - ” She kissed his cheek, and began to reach over the side of the bed where her clothing had been discarded. Quick as a more energetic man, Cullen wrapped his arms around her waist. He pressed his lips to her shoulder. Her head lolled to the side and a sigh escaped her. He seemed a bad influence, he knew, but in truth he would let her go within the minute. It was only that he wanted her to think him longing, for he was. He was just bad at expressing it properly.

“You know I’d stay, but it’s got to be past sunrise - ”

“Moonlight.’

She leaned her head back into his shoulder. “It’s orange.”

“A harvest moon, then.”

Cullen’s skin prickled from her breath against his ear as she laughed.

Though he intended to let her go promptly, she began murmuring sweet words by his ear, and he lingered. She straightened up and squeezed the hands around her waist.

“I love you.” Her index finger traced along the side of his own. “You know that, right?”

He laid his forehead against the curve of her shoulder. “I love you too.”  _Let her know it. And Maker, let it be enough._

Cullen had never felt such confidence in affection. Nothing could be ruined by a wrong word or gesture. Not with this woman, who would probably respond to him falling asleep on her with a laugh and a hand running through his hair. Ironically, the sunlight had made him more tired than he had been all night.

“I do have to go. I’m sorry.”

He conceded, but made sure to take his time trailing his fingers away from her waist. “Don’t be,” he murmured. “I will be here when you return.”

He laid back, one arm thrown above his head onto the pillow. Occasionally he stole a glance at her as she got dressed. The sunlight made her hair look soft and feathery despite her attempts to smooth it down. She looked prim as always in her attire, the only hint betraying her activities from the night before was a slight glow to her cheeks. Cullen hoped that was a glow. He hoped he wasn’t imagining it.

“See you when I see you.” She smiled, and he smiled evenly back at her. Once she was down the ladder, the smile dropped from his face, and once the door closed behind her, he dropped back onto the mattress. He could almost  _feel_ the skin under his eyes turning purple.

—

The second time was the very evening she returned from the Storm Coast. She let out expletives he’d never even heard before, he never apologised or faltered, and her hands never loosened their grip on his shoulders. Desperate to forget how endangered he felt the last time, he chases her sighs up her throat with his mouth as they spike into moans, remaining attentive as he can so that he might find himself competent after seeing her satisfied.

She doesn’t curl up against his side afterwards, instead opting to trace his lips with her finger, sneaking kisses with the cheek of a woman who knows she can. He tried to fall asleep in her arms as she had with him. Maker, but he did try. The restless buzz inside his calves and head demanded to be the main thing on his mind. Not sweetness. Not pleasure. No softness could be felt for longer than his withdrawal allotted. His leg kicked out. Clamping his teeth and tensing his calf muscles as if it could still them, Cullen prayed that he’d implode and disappear. He hadn’t wanted her to bear witness to any of this, yet he couldn’t even spare her the small things. She shifted and laid a hand on his chest. Solid, comforting warmth came so easily to her. He wanted that.

“Cullen?”

He wanted her to feel like he was truly dependable, relied on to be more than a hollow man with a brave face. And he wanted to keep some of the strength for himself, tucked beneath his armour, next to her in his heart.

“Cullen?” A few strands of hair fell over her eyes as she braced herself on her elbows. She pushed them away to look at him better. He found his eyes following her hand as it looped the hair back behind her ears. She was too beautiful to be there.

“Forgive me, it’s - ” His knee jolted up, and he strangled a curse in his throat.

She laid her thumb across his lips, the tip of it brushing his scar. His breath came in broken staccato at how she could be so effortlessly tender.

“It’s alright.” With her free hand, she chased his sore veins from elbow to wrist, and then pushed his palm open. Her expression was determined, the look she always had whenever the unexpected was defining itself inside her. She rolled atop him, and he immediately felt frail. Too weak to be kicking his legs about. Too weak for anything - it felt wrong, and he laid his hand against her hip in the hopes she would quicker initiate whatever she had in mind.

With her free hand, she began to tap and stroke the skin above his collarbone. A gentle _one two three four_ , then she would move along an inch. Her fingertips were stones skipping across the surface of his blood. A finger traced up his neck. Pressure applied under his chin. Her nail gently grazing down his throat. She didn’t stray near his bones. Instead, her fingers stroked and pressed at the soft spots beneath his clavicle, between his ribs, her hands meticulous as though she was inspecting gaps in his armour. It reverberated deep into his stagnant insides. Unconsciously, his legs stretched out, the back of his heels draping over the mattress. She was reminding him of what he had kept together.

Cullen’s heart beat faster as he realised he wasn’t doing anything for her in return. He raised his hand to cup her cheek only to have her lean away.

“Relax,” she said.

“But… you - ”

She leaned in and hovered her mouth above his neck. “Relax,” she repeated against his pulse. She finished the word by closing her mouth onto his throat. A silence settled around them as she resumed her pattern, but the sweetness of her words remained, damp on his skin. He closed his eyes. 

She continued her gentle trailing along his body. His thoughts dissipated, eventually he forgot himself, aware only of her touch. Even the places he was horribly ticklish responded with only a slight prickling. The persistent wavering of every nerve in his body came to a standstill.

Then, she massaged his cheekbones with her thumbs just hard enough to hurt, rested her grip on the sides of his head, and kissed him deeply. Euphoric lightness bloomed in his chest, as though his happiness was rising to meet its creator. As though his mouth had never held poison.

Every night they spent together, she did the same. The Inquisitor was restless in her affection. More often than not it was a short ritual. They both had long days, leaving them wanting to do little more than sleep after lying together. Other nights it was as long as the first time. It helped him immensely. Cullen’s particular favourite was when she rolled him onto his stomach and massaged him from his shoulders to his hips. Her touch was a balm. For scar tissue to be strong as callous, one must treat wounds properly. And she was an expert at teaching him how it felt to heal.

“Thank you,” he once murmured into the pillow.

“You deserve it,” she’d whispered, fists pressing against his back. He, desperate to fulfill unspoken promises, thought the same whenever he held her. In her voice it sounded like a declaration.  

Always, it ended with her gripping the hollows of his cheeks, her mouth pushing his open, her tongue unexpectedly gentle against his. The sureness of her touches invigorated him and left him stronger when the sun rose.

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posted to my [tumblr!](http://bonnysims.tumblr.com/post/109727718246/stronger-when-you-hold-him-fem-inquisitor-cullen)


End file.
